To Don, David, Jacob and Paul

[Jørgen Andreas Bangor]

DON:
>you slipped when you said that Marvel distributes Gladstones to the Direct
>market;

Yup. I meant the newsstand market, but I (accidentally) switched the 
expressions. In Norway we have only one version. Much simpler :-)

>And what "African" countries does Egmont publish Disneys (or anything
>else) in?

Actually, I have no idea. I've just heard that they do. Maybe they've
just got the rights to do it.

DAVID:
>If we're supposed to not recognize a disguised amnesiac Scrooge on page 8 

I think we _are_ supposed to see that it's him. He's just "disguised"
because he doesn't know who he is. The point then is that Scrooge, not 
knowing he's Scrooge, is competing with himself.

It might very well have been the script of the "Phantom Bob" story that
saved it. I actually liked it quite well. What the kids being home alone
conserns... there are so many strange things in that story that I didn't
really care about it. If it had been only one detail, like Alberta, or
Minnie standing at the police station crying, I would have cared -- but
everything at once... BTW: I would think that M+F are old enough to find 
the food themselves (sandwitches with peanutbutter in front of the TV :). 
Goofy looked great in that old detective habit, BTW.

But why must Esteban draw in this stupid style, while Ferioli can draw in
another style? 
Apropos stupid style -- quite a long time since I've seen a Tello story now.

And, again, apropos stupid style, or rather just bad:

Me:
>- Donald Duck (D93179, 6 pages). This is quite badly drawn, but it looks 
>a bit like Branca.

I think it must be Xavi. Remember that farm story?

JACOB:
>DD 'Svinestreger' (Pigs tricks?) - D93554
>This definitely looks like the Don Rosa story that was in the Norwegian 
>weekly. The pigs are called Napoleon, Caesar and Alexander (i.e pointing 
>to history and not litterature). A great story!

You could hardly get any bigger compliments than that, David :-)

>Is there also a lot of 'junk' (non-comic stuff) in the Norwegian weekly?

If you mean contests, tests to see if you are good in astronomy, wildlife
etc., stickers, playing cards, the JWW guidebook series  etc. -- yes. 
But it's not overwhelming, as the advertisements in Marvel's Disney titles.


I'm not so sure I'm the right one to answers PAUL's new questions, but
since noone else have done it yet, I'll give it a try.

PAUL:
>Can I infer from what I read that the current work of Rosa and Van Horn is
>not available in English?

Since they work for Egmont, noone will publish their work before Egmont has.
That means that they will be published in Norwegian, Danish, German, Russian
(I, guess...) etc. before Gladstone gets the chance to do it. The only 
Egmont issue published in English is the British, but if I've understood
David right, they rarely seem to publish van Horn or Rosa. Van Horn's last
story seem to be an exception to this (ah, well -- I guess they publish their
shorter stories).
     After Egmont is finished with the stories, any company with a Disney
licence, except for Marvel, can publish them. Therefore, Gladstone will
publish them sooner or later (probably later). Rosa, and van Horn are so
popular in the US that all of their stories, except for one banned story, 
probably will see print in the US.

>What IS Gladstone doing?

Gladstone is publishing six titles:

Mickey and Donald
Donald Duck
Donald Duck Adventures
Uncle Scrooge
Uncle Scrooge Adventures
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories

These are all published bimonthly (six a year).

In addition they publish the album series "Walt Disney's Comics and stories
in Color" and "Donald Duck's Adventures in Color". These are only Barks
stories. Beautifully colored.
A new series, "Uncle Scrooge's Adventures in Color", will start next year.

I'm not really sure what you americans mean by the word 'reprint'. If you mean
that a story printed by Gladstone is a reprint, even if it's only been 
published in Italy before, and never in the US, then Gladstone are doing 
almost only reprints.
     If you, on the other hand, mean it's a reprint only if it has been
published in the US before, then Gladstone is publishing some "new" stories.

I use the last definition in the following.

Gladstone are reprinting a lot of Barks and Strobl. In addition to these
they are publishing "new" stories by Rosa and van Horn, and some other
Danish, Dutch and Italian stories. The Italian stories are mostly by Romano
Scarpa.
In addition there are a few Al Hubbard one-pagers, some stories drawn by
the Jaime Diaz studio etc.

Gladstone has, in the so-called series II (after they took over from Disney
again), published two new stories (stories made for Gladstone) by Ron 
Fernandez and Pat Block, and a couple of one-pagers written and drawn by Vic 
Lockman.

>Are the Gladstone/Marvel comics poorly distributed?

Seems so, although it's no problem to get them here in Norway...
(at least not in the bigger cities).
 
>I haven't seen a new US comic in over a year.

Too bad, since Don Rosa's "Life of $crooge" is currently being published
in Uncle Scrooge. Part seven (of twelve) was recently published.
That might of course be the reason why you haven't seen it. They seem to
be popular.



   Jorgen